1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the placement or replacement of bale ties on bundles or bales of compressed solid material. Particular application exists with regard to the repair and recompression of cotton bales that have been damaged due to the loss or improper functioning of one or more bale ties.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Presently approximately 18 to 20 million bales of cotton, each weighing about 500 pounds, are produced in the United States annually. They are formed in the typical cotton gin at the rate of one every 2 to 3 minutes. This is done by having the cotton fiber fed down an inclined plane into a preliminary tramping mechanism which forces the cotton into a typically rectangular enclosure. Once this enclosure contains the desired amount of cotton, it is then rotated to a second position where considerable compressive force is applied for baling.
Most gin presses have two rectangular enclosures, one to store cotton during ginning and the other to do the actual compression. The cotton bale is formed by its compression between a pair of 20.times.54-inch rectangular plates, or platens, to which a force ranging from about 600,000 to about 1,000,000 pounds is applied. The platens conventionally have six to eight grooves therein that are about one-inch wide and two inches deep. These facilitate the insertion of bale ties once the bale is compressed to a density of about 42 pounds per cubic foot, which corresponds to a thickness of about 19 to 20 inches. These bale ties, comprising of round steel wires or flat straps made of steel or polyester, are then made to encircle the bale and their loose ends connected together. The compressive mechanism is then released and the bales are allowed to expand to a thickness that the restraining bale ties permit, this conventionally ranges from about 26 to 32 inches. Final bale dimensions are thus typically about 21 inches by 55 inches by 26 to 32 inches.
Bale tie failure, caused by such factors as improper tie-off, improper matching of bale ties to compression density, uneven cotton distribution within the bale, low moisture content, defective ties, and improper storage or handling, is a significant problem which plagues the cotton industry. While specific statistics are not kept on the number of bale tie failures during a typical year, it is estimated that about 4% or over 800,000 bales, experience tie failures annually. Bale failure rates in excess of 10% annually have however been reported at some large storage facilities. Typically, from one to four ties break in a given bale, thereby allowing it to expand from its original thickness of 26 to 32 inches up to about 38 to 42 inches. Bales damaged through loss of bale ties are rejected by mill customers due to their increased susceptibility to contamination and their loss of physical conformity to the mill's processing machinery.
Repair procedures in the past have included such approaches as recompression of the entire bale in conventional baling equipment or manually cinching a replacement tie around the bale. The deficits in these approaches are that use of the baling equipment requires that the gin not be processing cotton at the time, the bale expands to dimensions greater than the press opening and the bale must be completely unpackaged, and manual cinching may fail to adequately reconstrain the bale.
Warehouses handling large volumes of cotton bales have been compelled, as a result of this situation, to dedicate expensive large scale bale presses for accomplishing bale tie replacement. Smaller gins and warehouses having insufficient bale tie failures to justify the major expenditure for a bale press must ship the defective bales back to the gin of origin for repair at significant cost, in order to make them acceptable for market. Aside from transportation, repair costs range from $10 to $35 per bale, depending on the availability of a bale press. This works out to a cost of $8 to $28 million for repair of the 800,000 bales damaged annually.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,438,689 to Simich teaches a method to apply wire to a material baling device which comprises a pair of wide platens, each containing at least one recessed channel for use with placement of bale tie wires. The device includes a power feed assembly designed to guide the bale tie wires through the platen channels so that their placement and securing is made less labor intensive.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,509,416 to Simich teaches bale tie joining devices for securing bale tie ends on the top of the bale, wherein the completed tie joint or knot is readily visible to the press operator from the top prior to bale release.